Arrest me

Dear Border Czar:

You are seeking bids from private contractors to surveil, investigate, follow and report on anyone who posts “negative” comments about Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the internet and/or social media. [The link above has been removed from the internet.]

“Once flagged, the system will further scour a target’s internet history and attempt to reveal their real-world position and offline identity. In addition to compiling personal information — such as the Social Security numbers and addresses of those whose posts are flagged — the contractor will also provide ICE with a ‘photograph, partial legal name, partial date of birth, possible city, possible work affiliations, possible school or university affiliation, and any identified possible family members or associates,’” according to an ace report by Sam Biddle in The Intercept.

According to the 15-page ICE document [this link has been removed from the internet]: “Assessments and/or searches shall involve real-time aggregating open source information using unique identifiers for related association, enhanced data analytics, and analytic reporting on sentiment and other related factors.”

“Sentiment”? You want to spend millions of tax dollars investigating people’s “sentiments”?

You don’t have to spend a dime on me, Big Brother; I’ll tell you my sentiments right now.

(For the record, the Department of Agriculture also has removed data from the internet — data about climate change, prompting a lawsuit from U.S. farmers, who need that information.)

You can trust me, Big Brother Little Man. I know more about immigration enforcement than you ever will. I’ve learned it for 40 years, on my own dime. I wrote the book on it.

I’ve reported on immigration prison guards torturing and sexually molesting refugees, strip-searching children and babies, and immigration judges mocking torture victims in court for the despicable act of seeking asylum from war.

So c’mon and send your Stasi  troops to arrest me, Czar. Just knock on my door. I’ll talk. Send a stenographer. Please don’t shoot my dogs.

Your bid solicitation, Your Czarness, states that your Stasi  gangs must “provide monitoring and analysis of behavioral and social media sentiment (i.e. positive, neutral, and negative)” of anyone who dares to criticize you, or ICE. Your privatized Stasi  must “include regular updates on the ‘total number of negative references to ICE found in social media.’”

Wow. Why would you want “the ‘total number of negative references to ICE found in social media.’”? Are you running for junior high school class president?

If I “brief” you on the sly that I heard my neighbors speaking Spanish, would you send me a medal of commendation? A sticker, maybe? “I snitched and I’m proud of it”?

You say you are worried about threats against ICE employees. What about threats to federal judges and jurors who rule in ways your boss doesn’t like? What about right-wing militia threats to police officers? Or threats to a federal judge because she was not born in the United States?

Is it a crime now to be a naturalized citizen?

Oh, and Your Czarness: Why would you ask the Department of Justice to investigate Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? According to The Hill, you believe that AOC’s efforts to teach people about their rights is “impeding” your “operations.”

“So, maybe AOC’s gonna be in trouble now,” you said.

“This is not the first time Homan has suggested the possibility of action against Ocasio-Cortez for her attempts to educate people about their rights during ICE raids,” the Hill added.

AOC responded to Homan’s latest threats by calling him a “coward,” and suggesting he do some book larnin’.

“Maybe he can learn to read. The Constitution would be a good place to start,” she suggested.

Actually, Tom, you pathetic, ignorant human, why don’t you arrest both of us? I’d love to spend a few hours in a cell with AOC. Then you could deport her to the Bronx and deport me to Chicago.

It won’t be the first time I’ve been unconstitutionally arrested for writing about immigration. When I was doing legal work at the immigration prison in Oakdale, Louisiana, I was thrown in jail for taking a photo of the prison from its parking lot, for a news story I wrote. Actually, I was thrown in jail because the Hartford Courant published that story, under the headline: “The Jail an Indicted Mayor Helped Build.”

But back to you, Tom, if that really is your name. You know my address. You’ve surely got access to every email I ever sent or received, and every website I’ve ever visited, and all the names of my “associates.” I could send them to you if you’re too dumb to know how to do it.

If you do investigate and arrest me, is there any federal or state law or policy to prevent you from sending the whole downloaded thumb drive to MAGA people and their fascist militia members who might want to kill me? For being who I am?

No, there is not.

So c’mon, Little Caeszar, let’s fight it out in public, fair and square. Cinch up your girdle and send your Stasi  to interrogate me and throw me in jail for refusing to answer your questions — or for answering them — or for “threatening” or “impeding” you by answering them.

You might learn something, Tommy. But tell me, in your sweet ignorance, do you ever lie sleepless at night, thinking about how many children’s lives you have ruined, and continue to ruin, and what will become of them? I bet not.

You never knew any of those kids, Czar. But I do.

I also know Elon’s plan that you are carrying out, Czar, by only followink ordahs : Stop counting the bodies, censor government websites, and call it “eliminating government waste.”

Millions of dead people in poor countries around the world who will never get food or vaccines provided by our defunct Agency for International Development will soon be our “government’s waste.”

Now that you know my sentiments, Tom, what’s stopping you from arresting me? Surely nothing so flimsy as a Constitution.

(The ICE request for bids was removed from the internet sometime over the long weekend of Feb. 21-23. I copied and pasted citations from the document in the days before the government “efficiently” removed it from the web. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.)